The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Neil Clarke has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome "sensawunda" that the genre has to offer.

An unabridged audio collection of the "best of the best" science fiction stories written in 2011 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster, as narrated by top voice talents. In "Dying Young", by Peter M. Ball, cyborgs, clones, and post-humans collide with a dragon bent on revenge in a post-apocalyptic space western. In "Canterbury Hollow", by Chris Lawson, two lovers on a planet orbiting a killer sun share their few remaining weeks together before they die....

An unabridged audio collection of the "best of the best" science fiction stories published in 2010 by current and emerging masters of the genre as narrated by top voice talents. Stories in this year's collection include "Under the Moons of Venus" by Damien Broderick; "The Shipmaker," winner of the 2011 British Science Ficiton Association Award for short fiction, by Aliette de Bodard; Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" by Yoon Ha Lee, "Re-Crossing the Styx" by Ian R. MacLeod; "Eight Miles" by Sean McMullen; and more.

The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 7

An unabridged audio collection of the "best of the best" science fiction stories published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster, as narrated by top voice talents.

This is an unabridged audio collection of the "best of the best" science fiction stories published in 2013 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster, as narrated by top voice talents. In "Zero for Conduct," by Greg Egan, an Afghani teenager, living in a near-future Iran with her exiled grandfather, makes a game-changing superconductor discovery. A young girl struggles to survive on a planet, with a stringent class structure, where Doors are used to go off-world in "Exile, Interrupted," by C. W. Johnson.

Children of Time

Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.

The Disappeared: A Retrieval Artist Novel

Retrieval Artists help the lost find their way back home, whether they like it or not. Specialized private detectives, they investigate the most unusual crimes in the galaxy. But Miles Flint isn't a Retrieval Artist. He's just a cop, trying to do his job.

Ninefox Gambit

To win an impossible war, Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.

Captain Kel Cheris of the Hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris' career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the Hexarchate itself might be next.

Something Coming Through

The aliens are here. And they want to help. The extraordinary new project from one of the country's most acclaimed and consistently brilliant SF novelists of the last 30 years. The Jackaroo have given humanity 15 worlds and the means to reach them. They're a chance to start over, but they're also littered with ruins and artifacts left by the Jackaroos' previous clients.

The Medusa Chronicles

Howard Falcon almost lost his life in an accident as the first human astronaut to explore the atmosphere of Jupiter - and a combination of human ingenuity and technical expertise brought him back. But he is no longer himself. Instead he has been changed into an augmented human: part man, part machine, and exceptionally capable.

Gateways: Original New Stories Inspired by Frederik Pohl

It isn’t easy to get a group of bestselling SF authors to write new stories for an anthology, but that’s what Elizabeth Anne Hull has done in this powerhouse book. With original, captivating tales by Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Ben Bova, David Brin, Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Joe Haldeman, Harry Harrison, Larry Niven, Vernor Vinge, Gene Wolfe, and others, Gateways is a SF event that will be a must-buy for SF readers of all tastes, from the traditional to the cutting edge; from the darkly serious to the laugh-out-loud funny.

Short novels are movie length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2012 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form.

Survival Quest: Way of the Shaman Series # 1

Barliona: a virtual world jam-packed with monsters, battles - and, predictably, players. Millions of them come to Barliona, looking forward to the things they can't get in real life: elves and magic, dragons and princesses, and unforgettable combat. The game has become so popular that players now choose to spend months online without returning home. In Barliona, anything goes: You can assault fellow players, level up, become a mythical hero, a wizard, or a legendary thief.

This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2013 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form. In Earth I, by Stephen Baxter, a search among the stars to ferret out the origins of mankind amidst the Xaian normalisation digs up many surprises. In Success, by Michael Blumlein, a brilliant but erratic biologist studying epigenetics struggles to hang onto his grip on everyday life as he writes his ground-breaking tome.

The Silent Corner: A Novel of Suspense

"I very much need to be dead." These are the chilling words left behind by a man who had everything to live for - but took his own life. In the void that remains stands his widow, Jane, surrounded by questions destined to go unanswered...unless she does what all the grief, fear, confusion, and fury inside of her demand: find the truth, no matter what. There is no one else to speak for Jane's husband - or the others who have followed him into death at their own hands.

The Three-Body Problem

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Six

This statement was true when H. P. Lovecraft first wrote it at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it remains true at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The only thing that has changed is what is unknown. With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year, edited by Ellen Datlow, chronicles these shifting shadows.

The Year's Top Short SF Novels 5

Short novels are movie-length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of storytelling.

Short novels are movie length novels that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This unabridged audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2011, by current and emerging masters of this form. In "The Ice Owl", by Carolyn Ives Gilman, an adolescent, female, Waster, in the iron city of Glory to God finds an enigmatic tutor who provides her with much more than academic instruction while a fundamentalist revolt is underway.

Jim &#34;The Impatient&#34; says:"GOD CREATED HEAVEN, MEN CREATED HELL"

The Long List Anthology is designed to recognize the short works that were nominated for the 2015 Hugo Awards but did not make it into the top five short list for the final ballot. Thus, voted into the Hugo Award's long list of works - the top 15 works nominated for each category - were these nine short stories and three novelettes, now made available to a wider audience by award-winning narrators.

Publisher's Summary

Here is an unabridged audio collection of the "best of the best" science-fiction short stories published in 2009 by current and emerging masters of the genre, as narrated by top voice talents.

In "Erosion", by Ian Creasey, a man tests the limits of his exo-suit prior to leaving a dying earth. In "As Women Fight", by Sara Genge, a hunter has no time to train for a fight to inhabit his wife's body in a society of body-switchers. In "A Story, with Beans", by Steven Gould, the role of religion in a dystopian future plagued with metal-eating bugs is considered. In "Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance", by John Kessel, a monk, in the far future, steals the only copies of a set of plays from a repressive regime and uses this loot to free his people. In "On the Human Plan", by Jay Lake, a mysterious alien visits a far-future, dying earth in search of the death of Death. Set in the Jackaroo sequence, in "Crimes and Glory", by Paul McAuley, a detective chases a thief to recover alien technology that both aliens and humanity are desperate to recover. Set in the Lovecraftian "Boojum" universe, in "Mongoose", by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, a vermin hunter and his tentacled assistant come on board a space station to deal with toves and raths. In "Before My Last Breath", by Robert Reed, a geologist discovers a strange fossil in a coal mine that leads to the discovery of a peculiar graveyard. In "The Island", by Peter Watts, a woman on a spaceship must decide whether to place a stargate near an alien society that will ultimately destroy it. "This Peaceable Land; or, the Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe", by Robert Charles Wilson, is an alternate American Civil War history in which the war was never fought, slavery gradually disappeared, and Uncle Tom's Cabin was never published.

I read and listen to a lot of short fiction. I love the genre. So much depth packed into such small packages, so much writerly skill to celebrate in that packing. I love the way it feels to be the reader as a story unfolds, explodes or morphs in my mind in only a few pages. I love the way my mind is later pulled back to ideas presented in short stories.

Not this time. All I can figure is that the editors of this anthology look for different qualities in short sci fi than I do. Listening to these stories I found my mind wandering. I didn't finish several because I just didn't care how they ended. And a few weeks after listening to this anthology, I only remember one of the stories and all I remember about it is its premise.

This is an unfair review in that way and should be taken with a grain of salt. I can't comment on individual stories, only my general takeaway. It could be that the stories I didn't finish were great, that I gave up on them too fast because other stories had disappointed me, and if I'd finished them I'd be saying, "Wow, you ROCK!" to those individual authors.

Nevertheless. My takeaway from the collection as a whole is a big fat yawn.

I think sci fi is a very difficult genre to do well in short form. The writer has to do everything a general fiction writer does, but has the added task of creating a world in which the story transpires. Still, it seems to me that the stories in a collection entitled 'The Year's Top Ten" should succeed at this as well as everything else a writer of short fiction must succeed at: believable characters, verisimilitude in action and dialogue, satisfying or troubling or otherwise worthwhile conclusions, yada yada.